Merle Howard Award surprises Karen Anderson

Submitted by World Dairy Expo on Sat, 10/08/2011 - 13:21

Hoard's Dairyman:

Merle Howard Award surprises Karen Anderson

Date:

Sat, 10/08/2011

Given in memory of Merle Howard, the 1954 Klussendorf winner, the Howard award is given to World Dairy Expo’s top junior exhibitor. Howard was a long-time World Dairy Expo volunteer, who served as herd manager for Moosehart Farms, as a Holstein classifier, and later in the sales and export business.

He was a charter member of the National Dairy Shrine and on the first-ever board of directors of National Dairy Shrine. He is only one of eight people to have won its 4-E Award for outstanding service and three years ago, Howard was named a Pioneer by National Dairy Shrine. Previous winners include:

And now for this year’s winner, Karen Anderson. This young lady is a well-rounded dairy youth who is an outstanding judge, exhibitor, and leader. Simply said, she has an incredible judging record taking home not one, but three high individual honors at national caliber dairy judging contests. In 2006, she placed first overall individual at the All-American Dairy Show in Harrisburg, Pa. Three years later, she repeated that same accomplishment by winning high individual at the National 4-H Dairy Cattle Judging Contest at World Dairy Expo. And last fall, she was high individual and also won oral reasons at the North American International Livestock Exposition in Louisville, Kentucky. A gifted leader, she also served as president of her breed’s national junior association two years ago.

At World Dairy Expo, she showed seven cows and heifers that placed in the top four in her junior breed show during the last four years. Of that group, all but one was homebred individuals. In 2009, this Merle Howard Award winner exhibited the Reserve All American Junior 3-year-old who also captured Junior All American honors when was named Reserve Grand Champion of the National Guernsey Junior Show at World Dairy Expo. This week, her homebred fall yearling, Up The Creek Super Lux Kazoom-ET, was named Reserve Junior Champion of the Junior Show by Judge Blaine Crosser.

Above, all this young lady is a hard worker, who fits and prepares her own animals for the show each year. For these and many other accomplishments, this Minnesota native was named the Outstanding National Guernsey Youth last year. And now, it is my pleasure to introduce Karen Anderson as the eighth winner of the Merle Howard Award. As Karen makes her way to the ring, we are happy to congratulate this University of Minnesota student from Lester Prairie, Minnesota. She is the daughter of David and Donna Anderson and also has one brother, Kevin.